Ringgit finishes lower against US dollar

RINGGIT

THE ringgit closed lower against the US dollar yesterday in line with the easier stock market, where the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI lost 11.44 points to 1,205.95, dealers said.

At 5pm, the ringgit was at 3.4780/4820 to a US dollar compared with 3.4680/4720 at last Friday's closing.

A dealer said the local stock market ended lower as investors took cue from the US market which went down on selling pressure, and this had impact on the ringgit's movement.

Against the Singapore dollar, the local unit rose 2.4471/4533 from 2.4479/4534 but against the Japanese yen it eased to 3.8886/8944 from 3.8304/8360.

The local unit was also higher against the British pound to 5.5318/5399 from 5.5592/5674 and against the euro to 5.0869/0938 from 5.0948/1018.

INTERBANK RATES

SHORT-TERM rates remained steady at close yesterday as Bank Negara Malaysia continued to siphon off excess liquidity to keep rates in check.

The overnight rate finished at 1.92 per cent while the one-week, two-week and three-week rates were at 1.95, 1.97 and 1.99 per cent respectively.

Liquidity surplus in the system was reduced to RM18.0 billion in the conventional operations and to RM8.08 billion in Islamic funds. The central bank earlier estimated excess liquidity at RM30.37 billion in the conventional system and RM8.25 billion in Islamic funds.

In the conventional system, Bank Negara called for five tenders to borrow RM2 billion each for one-week, two-weeks, three-weeks and 45-days respectively and RM4 billion for one-month. The central bank also called for a repo tender of RM500 million for 45-days.

In addition, it issued three Al-Wadiah tenders namely RM1.5 billion for one week and RM500 million each for two-weeks and three-weeks respectively. It also conducted a late conventional tender for RM18.0 billion of three-day money and an Al-Wadiah tender for RM8.0 billion of three-day money.

KLIBOR

THE three-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (Klibor) futures on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed lower yesterday with two contract months traded, dealers said.

December 2009 and March 2010 declined three ticks each to settle at 97.80 and 97.63 respectively.

Turnover totalled 22 lot while open interest was 32,903 contracts. At 11am, the underlying three-month Klibor was fixed at 2.14 per cent. Meanwhile, the five-year Malaysian Government Securities futures were untraded. - Bernama